20101025
reuters

HASTINGS, Sierra Leone (Reuters) - In a patch of freshly cleared bush a short drive outside the capital Freetown, U.S. trainers look on as Sierra Leonean troops crawl over red laterite soil and square their rifles at imagined targets.

It is a sign of how far this West African nation has come since the end of its own war in 2002 that Sierra Leone now feels stable enough for peacekeepers to be trained for conflicts elsewhere.

"We had here the largest peacekeeping force ever in terms of per capita," said Michael von der Schulenburg, head of the U.N. presence that peaked at 17,500 but is now down to just 70.

"Now they are giving something back."

Sierra Leone has already sent a company of 130 soldiers to Sudan's Darfur region. But the move this month to start training a 510-strong, battalion-sized unit for possible foreign deployment takes the ambition into a new league.

The country's own civil war began in 1991, when fighters of the Revolutionary United Front invaded from neighbouring Liberia. Funded by Sierra Leone's lucrative diamond fields, the conflict lasted for over a decade.

Conscription of child soldiers was widespread. Commanders fuelled their teenage charges on "brown brown," a mixture of cocaine and gunpowder.

Today Sierra Leone is at peace and, although the country's infrastructure remains dilapidated -- with pot-holed roads and ramshackle telecommunications -- iron ore and offshore oil deposits are stirring investor interest.